ND-fan

We just need to protect home floor this next week which we have done most of the year. Also, I think it has been good that young players have been able to come in put important minutes out on the floor giving our starting 5 players rest. I think you see it in Kacie she has gotten her legs under her again and not leaving shots hitting off the front of the rim and especially on the 3. Manson has worked on her shot as year has gone along and now, she brings that element to the team of spreading the floor for our post people can drive on use their quickness down low offsetting our smaller size. The team is pretty much in control of their destiny if they just win out. It would be really nice if ORU would beat NDSU next week this would put us up game to go to get second place in the conference if we take care of business. I never would have thought that both ORU and NDSU would lose both games this weekend, but I guess should never take anything for granted in the Summit.

Both go down were tied for second.

NDSU and ORU both down going into the fourth could we hope for both them to loose and Und could come home tied for second.

Swsiouxmn you’re so right, which I didn’t think possible just a few days ago. If they win out they would have good chance for second. Omaha is going to be good test for us tomorrow. NDSU is going to have hard time in Denver it always tough road trip. If NDSU would loose in Denver we could be tied for second in the Summit and ideally would be Western Illinois pulling upset over ORU. This would set us up for big week next week in Grand Forks.

I have different opinion UND must have quality coaches when even the mighty NDSU has come to poaching away one our coaches. Second i see he had been at FBS level but was let go after they had fired their coach he had followed from Northern Illinois. I suspect he is trying to leapfrog his way back to FBS and he is doing this by using his connections in MVFC, where he started his football career. I think he probably took our job last year because it was best job he could find after being let go. In this jumping to job to job he be better hope not to land on spot where coaching staff gets let go by head coach firing because i think he will have used up some good will with coaches he left after short period of time being with them. Finally, i also think he has to believe that Entz is looking to move on to FBS or by chance SU moves up to FBS. Yes, we may be underfunded to top programs in the conference but i also believe were still in upper tier in the conference on funding for football. This is to be expected when our number one division sport is funded as one of highest in the nation and continually looking to be funded to stay ahead of all other schools in funding their program. The football program is better shape than other sports in amount of support but whole athletic department has been underfunded for number of years and beginning to show. The administration has done good job in updating and building academic part of university, but they now need to work on athletic programs as well to help attract future students and advance its brand to greater public nation wide.

I agree with you it has to be athletic players like in mold of Evans in NDSU or Myer from SdSU that can run the floor and can play defense. I would think Beal should see that she is line to get significant playing time next year and her potential will be limited to herself she already has shown she can play defense and be able create scoring for self down low in second chance opportunities. The next part of her game is learning to develop outside shooting consistency and to be able to make tough shot while being heavily guarded. I truely believe that she can make that next step but she is going to need patience in achieving that goal. But getting back to recruiting we need to start recruiting players with length if we want to make the next jump in women’s basketball. Aron Johnson at SDSU is doing that now because if want to win and have chance advancing in NCAA tournament this type of team you need and should I say also quick and fast point guards which he appears he has at least 3 of them on the roster. If we’re going to finish in top of the conference we need to sweep this road trip. Then we need to also sweep our next home stand. If we sweep next weekend we should over come USD in standings by a game. Then the falling weekend if we sweep and NDSU also beats ORU we should be a game up on ORU. This will leave us with our last road trip and winnable road trip and with ORU and USD behind us a game with final week end playing each other and ORU with game against SDSU. The key we have come to crunch time in conference play and we have not left ourselves much wiggle room to get to number 3. I would like for us to.finish up 3 to be opposite SDSU for the conference tournament. I may be missing something but this is scenario we need to have chance to reach conference championship game. This would also be big boost for recruiting and retaining players.

Beal is freshman and she needs to work on her offense especially her shot. Her time is coming if she continues to improve. I have been happy with these younger players getting playing time I still think they should had more earlier. Loosing Lane last year really hurt the potential of this team. I was hoping they would have brought in portal player to replace her we needed one experienced player who was legit number 5. Every time we come up against team that is deep with length we have struggled and look at teams ahead of us four of them fill this bill. That is why I think we will have hard time getting seeded higher than fourth and more likely 5. I was looking at next years recruits they are listed as guards but two of them are listed at 6 feet and third one is listed 5’8”. I also think we should have at least 2 more and could have additional if some of our seniors don’t come back and use their COVID year. With our remaining scholarships I hope we can find couple 4 or 5 to help us get a little bigger. I wouldn’t be surprised if they redshirt Jardine next year to help her develop she has size that could become quality post player and she would be trading development year for best year. My hope is they can find at least one experienced post player to play with kacie where they can make run for the conference. Next year will be pretty much end of the COVID extra year players. SDSU, if look at this team this team would look completely different without extra COVID year they would still be good but not this deep and experienced. They would not have Selland, Burkhard, and Gylten three starters off this team and Nelson and Thiesen would be seniors this year. The COVID eligibility extra year has helped several teams this year and will be big factor next year. This years team is good team but their Achilles heal is they are undersized and they need to play nearly perfect game to win against another good team especially on the road. We just need to continue to recruit and hopefully can build roster that will be competitive and be able to be conference champ.

I have Relatives That are UND alumni and their two children have looked at UND and their parents were in favor of them coming to UND. The oldest one isn’t involved in sports but she visited the school loved campus and what Und offered in her field and great package in scholarships but after she toured the town town saw what the Town offered for shopping and things to do she looked else where and went there. Now there youngest is athletic and is prospect for playing volleyball and already has been recruited by Montana State and several Ivy League schools as sophomore in high school but here she is not interested living in cold weather climate. I believe the kids today have higher standard or should I say it’s just not scholarship or even if institution has educational standards they also looking for it also has to be place where they want to live and socialize to like where they come from or they want. Todays kids are much different then when I went to school and probably even most of you when you went to school. Today that is why we see so many transfers and when they transfer they know what they want and by success rate in transferring I also got to believe even if they don’t get what they want will get their education by another way than continuing playing sports. I thought differently just couple years ago but I see it in my young adult children and now seeing it in kids that are coming to college now by way of my family they have requirements and if don’t meet them they will move on either finding in athletics or doing it another way.

Location of us being the very most northern school in Summit does have large effect on recruiting. I see it mentioned number of times on other school boards the weather and cold we have here is used against us in recruiting. The next thing is Grand Forks has fallen behind in shopping and things to do in town compared to where our recruits are coming from like greater twins city area so it becomes tougher sell. Then you come to facilities we have slipped to just average at best for facilities and looks to be years from any updating. Then programs like basketball are not funded like some of other programs they are competing against. Many of you forget that ORU basketball is king sport for them and they support that sport accordingly they have for one just renovating their arena. Also their climate and being close to talent rich recruiting area helps. ORU left Summit and returned and now looking at their move back I believe they saw it was much easier to reach tournament being bigger fish in small conference and they just play tougher non conference schedule to get additional recognition. What we’re experiencing now what number of people were saying about making jump to division I. This is not going to be simple and quick to get us back to where we can be factor in the conference. I look at present coaching staff have recruited back to back freshmen of the year but have lost them and many of them blame the coaching but it maybe the above reasons or other factors I haven’t brought up. I will here it’s the coach but maybe we should be looking at some of these reason and how we as fans can improve this for the program. I believe this not going to be quick turn around and changing coaches in my mind is we’re going to be repeating process and not getting to what needs to be changed that we can build on. We again have number of young talent to build on so we need to figure out where we go from now. I don’t believe we’re making excuses but identifying things we have to overcome and now we need to work to achieve this.

I would agree toughest road trips are over, but any road trip is tough to win Omaha lost to ORU in overtime at home this weekend and St. Thomas just beat South Dakota on the road so there is no given to beating anyone on the road or home. It would be sure fun to catch SDSU at home for win i see some other schools have played them closer than we have. Western Illinois game today was close to the fourth quarter, but it seems that Johnson has his team up for North Dakota schools. I think remaining six games after that on paper we should win but my guess we end up 4 and 2 on past history going down the stretch ending with 10-8 record. This would probably give us either 4 or 5 seed in the conference tournament. If we win all six we should be 3rd seed for the tournament.

Fargo media trying to hype the Bison just go look at map of AAC they are not going add one member that far geographically from the conference. I just don't see any of Dakota schools going individually to FBS conference near future or ever because of logistics and second because of fan base just not enough people to attract attention for tv or national interest. Like I say if teams of MVC and Big Sky are going to play FBS its going to be forming FBS conference out of these two conferences.

I wouldn't phrase it most active fans it may be on this board but to me most active fans are people who are attending games and are season ticket holders for the basketball team. Until we hear from these fans the poll above means little to me, you're talking about less than 50 people involved in this poll and even of that its less than 30 people wanting to change coach. The poll most important is the people attending the games and Alumni of UND and finally the Athletic Director and President of the University. My gut feeling is that we're not there and probably because UND fans are pretty knowledgeable understand we have very young team and are watching this team progress and see potential of these players. Things that might change their minds if we lose these players at end of the season, but I don't think that's going to happen either. We have just gone through abnormal time in college sports and i think players going into portal is going to slow down because large number that have done this outcome has not been that favorable. I look at top teams in conference because of covid extension were seeing players with 5- and 6-years college basketball. Look at South Dakota State this year's team would not have Arians, Dentlinger, and Luke Apple three starters that are playing 5th year of college basketball there is world of difference in true freshmen playing against experienced players. I believe number of teams have these players on their teams starting. Now we get to us the two players that fit this extra year of playing time are Sueker and Nero neither are starting and both coming of serious injuries last year and to my judgement have not recovered fully from their injuries. I believe this distortion of rosters is ending and we will see how we stack up when teams will not have this stockpile of older talent playing. This is why i believe the AD will give Sather longer leash than many of you called active fans would like and will continue to voice your displeasure. I believe he will get one- or two-year extension because if we don't do that pretty much impossible to retain players and recruit the talent this university needs to compete.

I don’t take much stock on these early offers on high school recruits if they are really exceptional they are looking for offers from power five conferences. All this does is keep open dialog with these players. I look at offers for juniors to early seniors that were likely going to get a commitment from. I don’t remember getting commitment prior than junior year in high school.

I thought I would do some checking on where we stand as team in Division I Basketball at the present time and compared to others in conference. I found that we are currently ranked 325 out 363 teams in Division I and we are not lowest rank team in the conference that is Omaha at 334. ORU is ranked 97 and SDSU is at 196. The conference spread of 5 through 10 is NDSU at 279 to Omaha and we have four teams ranked in the 300's. If you look youngest teams in the conference are near the bottom and the top 3 teams are most experienced is at the top. I find if you start doing some analysis results of teams are more complicated than some armchair experts here like to rant about. I think you should look at Denver school that has changed coaches at least twice in last 5 or 6 years and is similar to us in that they have successful hockey program and they do not have football program like we do see where their basketball program has continued faulter further with rapid coaching changes. I believe the needed changes here at UND is at administration in help supporting other sports bringing them on equal level of support that hockey sees here. (This is ESPN ranking by BPI and here is the Summit conference. the address is http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bpi/_/view/overview/group/49) I f

I went back and reviewed game footage she was at the Ohama game and was dressed but at the Denver game she was not dressed. Then on this road trip she was not dressed or even sitting with the team. I find this unusual and there was no mention of it by announcers for the Denver game at home. It could be explained by any number of reasons for not being at the games but usually if there's valid reason for missing there is some mention of it to the public. I sure hope that it's not case of quitting for whatever reason. She has been valuable for the team but i have seen her minutes have been reduced by additional time for Manson and Beal lately. It's ironic that she disappeared after Beal's 10-point game and extra playing time. I still think she was going to get playing time going into the future and again next year with departure of several seniors, so I hope she is still with the team. UND could do much better job of communicating with public and then we wouldn't have all these rumors and people wondering what's happening. It doesn't have to be lengthy explanation just simple statement on the subject, and it would go away.

Yes, I have to agree we need to beat the bison especially if we want to finish in the top three in the conference. We also need to split the next weeks home games with South Dakota teams ideally would be to sweep but we will need to start playing much better basketball than we have last few weeks to do this. If we don't, we could have hard time matching last year's conference record at 9-9. We currently sit at 4-0 at home and 0-5 on the road if we lose all to Dakota schools this would bring us down to 4-3 record and us then needing to sweep both ORU and KC to improve our home record to 6-3 improvement over last year by a game. This is not to mention we need to sweep our four remaining road games to match last year's record 4-5. This next two weeks games are now very critical if we are going to improve on last year record and move up in the conference. I believe we can do this, but our team level of play needs to step up and will require total team effort going forward.

The lack of height on front line is showing especially on the road. All conference losses this season have one thing in common we are getting out rebounded on the road and we are getting more fouls in our attempts to box out and when we do loose the rebound on defensive end were also picking up additional foul defending. Today with size and length that ORU had it showed very much. The pressure we showed getting back into the game was great, but we need to be able to expect and play our taller younger players expect quality minutes out them. They are showing improvement to week to week but i still believe they needed to play more minutes in the preseason to help these players get farther along for the conference season. Bernhard will need to recruit some more length either through the portal or with high school recruits that she has the confidence in making the jump to college basketball. With the exception of South Dakota all our losses are to teams that have length and athleticism we haven't had people to match up with them. Also, other conference teams have seen this weakness and are game planning with their teams to take advantage of this weakness. This why we experienced such close games with Ohama and Denver they used their size against us. I believe the key for us down the stretch will be how effective Beal, Hurst, VanderWall, and McCarthy can step up play quality minutes to help relieve our starters down low. This means not just playing defense but also to provide some offense to free up Kacie and others, so they won't be double teamed. Since Kacie was freshmen, we were strong our frontline but couldn't get good guard play and now we are totally opposite.

ORU is going to be very difficult game for us today and we are going to need to play offense today and as well as defense. This is exact type of team we have hard time matching up against they are long and fast team built to beat us and match very well against SDSU which they proved early in the season. If we are to beat this team, we will need to shoot ball well and get them in foul trouble early. I think our freshmen are going to need play some significant minutes and make jump in their level of play. If other players on team can create some offense this would help Kacie create her offense and have much higher shooting percentage because we need to start improving out percentage this has been reason for the close games. This should be fun game to watch.

I will consider this win if we can keep this game in twenty-point game but i am afraid that may be bridge to far to expect. After watching play the Bison this is team put together for the NCAA tournament with addition of couple transfers to last year's team. This team is made up 22- and 23- year-old players they have Abmas and McBride from outside or they can drive and shoot. Then they are either big on front court or powerful depending on who they bring in plus this team is deep in talent. By far they are the class of the Summit this year and i believe they are much better than SDSU was last year. I base this on the Bison game because the Bison played as good or better than last year's team against ORU Thursday night as they did against SDSU last year that was close game but against ORU they held it close for 3/4 of game and just few minutes ORU just blew game wide open. It still should be fun game to watch because to see the talent on floor and what they can do.

I was afraid this was going to happen again at KC we have hard time matching up with them especially on the road. Again we did not have good offensive game and we need to play better offensively to play defensively. Last year when we played this road trip we looked tired and tonight we did again. Second when we go south we get different style of reffing which we are not used to I se it both in the men and women’s games. The sad part we now go to ORU next and this is another team we don’t match up to very well. I thought tonight when we pressed with Beal on the point we were starting to turn things around. Beal needs to work on her shooting if part of her game would come around she could become feared player in the Summit. Somebody scoffed at KC earlier on the board but they may want to rethink that especially when they are at home.

I agree he was fun to watch play and for me i miss that style of basketball not the game we play today. He shined in that system because he played game so intelligently and they most of the time took high percentage shot and they played good defense.

It was a good press conference, and he is right that they are playing very young team out there we have no elite junior or senior player to build around on this team. I would criticize him on couple of points but being assistant coach, he does not have final say on construction of this team. I look at this roster wonder why they didn't look for one transfer that would give them team leadership from point guard position. The goal seems to be to build this team with high school recruits and that continues again with next year's recruits. This is not the answer a lot of people who are on this board are looking for because to do this means were at least looking at another year before we can look to move to upper half of the conference. I have to believe Chaves has had to sign off on this as well or Sather is putting himself at great risk with his job. Even on women's side they are basically been doing the same thing only difference is they do have elite player in Borowicz and now number of senior players this year but there again they didn't replace starter that transferred but went with high school players to replace with for this year. I believe this is philosophy of athletic department and it comes from the AD and University President must have signed off on this as well or fully approves of this practice. We do need a win because these players are needing to get some confidence back. I wouldn't be surprised we see two-year extension of Sather's contract especially if we start to get a few wins before the season is over.

I had idea but i may be way off in my thinking to help move the conference up in standings and i would think number of other mid-major conferences and even some major conferences could be open to this that halfway mark of conference season play couple of non-conference games. Because once you start conference season it's pretty hard to move very far in the net rankings when you are playing conference teams in some cases your net rankings can even go down if you're winning. Also, if your conference would have success in these later season games could pull all teams up in their net rankings. The way it is now if your young team which most mid-major teams are you have poor preseason you have zero chance in play in post season tournament. This would be way to determine how much each conference has made from the beginning of the year. Instead of conferences and teams are rated by past year results or early season results. I may be way off here but as it stands now there is not much reward for improvement during the season unless you can win the conference tournament at end of the season. This something i have been thinking about for some time and would put the conference season into two seasons letting teams have break in conference season and then have that final push to win the conference or improve their chances play post season.

The only way possible for two from the conference would be if somebody upset SDSU and somebody else gets automatic birth. Which I don’t see likely and it would result in low seating hurting chances to get very far in the tournament. My hope is other teams get invites to wnit and wcbi tournaments would help in recognition and recruiting talent.

SDSU the way they have shot ball in Frost pretty much going to be a blow out. Johnson also taking advantage against top contenders in last three games by burying them at home to shake confidence of these teams that they can play with them when they get home. They shot 60% against Usd for the game and had 60 plus in second quarter and then third qtr shot 70 plus. This was pretty much what they did against us. I see USD board they are complaining about defense but with sdsu size and then when they are shooting the 3 at 60% this is going to happen and they are playing 9 deep and little fall off with their players. I think Bernard after seeing this we have seen change in our rotations we are seeing us now play our younger players more. I believe this is only way we will have chance getting to upper tier in the conference it gives us different looks and gets longer to compete against some these teams in conference. This coming week games are going to be critical in winning if we want to finish top 3 in the conference. Both of these teams are long and will be critical to control boards. If we win here would have good chance bettering our last years record.